Las Vegas Sun

List of fatalities: Sunrise Hospital official says patient in critical condition has died

Off-duty Metro officer is among the deceased in mass shooting

Metro Officer Charleston Hartfield is shown at community event at Molasky Family Park in Las Vegas, Aug. 2, 2011. Hartfield was killed when a gunman opened fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017.

Update: A Sunrise Hospital official has reported that one of its patients in critical condition after Sunday's shooting died today. That increases the number killed to 59, plus the gunman who police say killed himself.

Friends of Charleston Hartfield, a military veteran, Metro Police officer and newly published author of “Memoirs of a Public Servant,” in which he touted his accomplishments and highlighted his struggles as a police officer, identified him as one of the people killed in Sunday’s mass shooting.

One of Hartfield’s last Facebook postings — a few hours before the shooting — was of a banner of the Route 91 Harvest Festival, where the shootings took place.

Friends knew Hartfield was there, so one of them, Troy Rhett, messaged him after he saw that something had gone wrong at the country music festival. Rhett didn’t hear back from Hartfield, and Monday morning learned that his friend, whom he’d met years ago through their kids’ youth football teams, was dead.

He was a great guy, Rhett said, theorizing that Hartfield was probably trying to help others when he was killed, “putting himself in danger.”

Hartfield was “one of the best people you could ever meet,” a simple man who did things the right way, a well-rounded, caring and loving human, Rhett said.

It’s a “huge loss” Rhett said, adding that the shooting “should never had happened.”

In “Memoirs of a Public Servant,” which was released in the summer, Hartfield wrote about his career as a Metro officer and the personal struggles that arise from being a police officer who had witnessed the aftermath of horrific deaths.

One of the last chapters focuses on the death of two Metro officers, who were slain in a pizza parlor in 2014, and the negative but bonding effect that occurred in the agency after the incident.

Hartfield was also active on Twitter, where he interacted with local reporters. When a reporter’s car was burglarized a couple of weeks ago, he sent several messages suggesting what to do.”Get a report for sure! See if they can dust for prints.”